


Electrical Communication

by wordbending



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied Mettaton/Papyrus, and undyne/alphys of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 23:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15254520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: Over a year after the events in Hotland, Alphys pays Mettaton a visit at his mansion for a long overdue talk.





	Electrical Communication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kara_Dreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_Dreamer/gifts).



> Commissioned by Kara from Mastodon! Thanks, Kara!

After paying her fare and thanking the driver, Alphys climbed out of the taxi she had just taken and adjusted her backpack. She had arrived at Mettaton’s mansion slash monster hotel slash entertainment plaza slash “party palace,” which Alphys could only thank her lucky stars he hadn’t decided to place in Hollywood - clear on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t like he couldn’t _afford_ it.

No, he’d decided to live on Mt. Ebott itself, only a short drive’s distance away from Alphys’ apartment and her new laboratory. He’d said, in interviews, that he wanted to live “close to home,” and you couldn’t possibly get closer than buying the land around Mt. Ebott and making it your personal real estate.

There were no parties being held today, and that was only because she was coming. She still remembered the phone call with Mettaton’s agent, who was also Mettaton - he had only insisted “I DON’T DO PRIVATE PARTIES, DEAR” until she had insisted back that they needed to talk. That he _owed her_ a talk… even after everything she’d done. And, besides, he hadn’t been to her for repairs in exactly a year now, and he was due for a check-up.

Somehow, by some miracle, he’d agreed.

She walked up to the front gate (made of solid gold and emblazoned with twin images of Mettaton in his rectangle form) and rang the intercom, which was also shaped like Mettaton. There was a buzz, and then a tinny, robotic voice spoke.

“SORRY, NO PARTIES TODAY, DARLING. _SOMEONE_ IS COMING TO VISIT AND I CAN’T _POSSIBLY_ HAVE GUESTS.”

“M-Mettaton,” Alphys said as firmly as possible, leaning up to the microphone shaped like Mettaton’s screen. “Y-you k-know it’s me. A-Alphys.”

“ALPHYS? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM-”

“S-stop that.”

“-MMMMMMMMMM. OH, I REMEMBER YOU NOW! THE ONE WHO _USED ME._ COME ON IN.”

Slowly, with a _creak_ that Alphys was pretty sure was just for effect, the golden gates to Mettaton’s mansion swung open. Her tail wagging nervously, she waited for them to open all the way before walking through - just in case he decided to close them on her again.

She made his way up his winding driveway, which she could have sworn was a mile long from how long it took her to climb it, until she reached his pool at the foot of the mansion. The pool Mettaton himself couldn’t use, since he _definitely_ couldn’t swim.

He’d taken the fountain statue of himself from his old hotel in Hotland and placed it in the center of the pool, but if that wasn’t enough to make it clear that it was definitely Mettaton’s mansion, he’d placed statues and bushes shaped like his rectangle form _everywhere else_ as well - you couldn’t turn a direction without seeing one. Most ostentatious were the two twenty-foot, sparkling golden statues standing sentry by the mansion’s front doors, one each of their huge arms lifted towards each other.

With a sigh, Alphys walked under their arms and up a set of stairs to the front doors, just as huge and just as ridiculous as everything else. They looked like the kind of wooden front doors you might see in your stereotypical castle - that was probably exactly where he’d gotten them from, actually. The only difference was that - of course - Mettaton had emblazoned the front of them with an image of himself. If he liked that rectangle form so much, she had to ask why he’d asked her to make him the humanoid form in the first place.

She reached up to knock on the doors, but they swung open automatically. Alphys took a step back, nearly falling over, as a red carpet rolled out from through the doors, past her feet, and down the stairs, stopping just at the edge of the pool.

“OHHHHHHHHHH YESSSSSSSS...” boomed a very familiar voice from what seemed like a dozen hidden loudspeakers. Alphys covered her ears.

And, through the doors, emerged Mettaton. What Alphys recognized as his theme music started to play, while sparklers and confetti set off from the floors and ceiling, as he rolled down the red carpet… right past Alphys.

“LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND OTHERS! YOUR STAR HAS ARRI-”

Suddenly, he paused, and twisted towards Alphys, as if just now noticing her. The music stopped, and the confetti and sparklers stopped with it.

“OH. RIGHT. IT’S _YOU._ ”

Alphys raised a clawed hand and waved awkwardly.

“Y-yes. It’s, um, m-me.”

“WELL, LET’S NOT DILLY-DALLY,” said Mettaton, somehow managing to instantly turn around on a single wheel. He started to roll back into the mansion, and Alphys adjusted her backpack and started to follow behind him.

The inside of the mansion was… about what Alphys expected. Banners with graphics of Mettaton’s rectangle form were everywhere. Huge flatscreens on the white walls displayed Mettaton’s 24/7 TV channel, Mettaton’s music videos, Mettaton’s films, even gameplay videos of Mettaton’s licensed video games. Between the flatscreens, constantly-spraying waterfalls descended into rivers which converged in a circle around a raised pedestal in the center of the room, on which sat a grand piano.

Mettaton rolled right past all of it, little platforms raising in the rivers of water as he rolled up towards them. Alphys followed behind, doubting those platforms would stay raised for her - she stepped over them carefully to avoid taking any unnecessary baths.

He came to a set of golden doors, which opened by themselves as he approached, and Alphys rushed to get through them before they shut again.

“N-nice, er, place,” she managed to say after a few moments, hugging her backpack straps and looking around at the long, long hallway they had entered.

“WELL, I DO HAVE _MILLIONS_ OF GUESTS, DARLING,” Mettaton replied. “WHY, I’VE DONE MORE FOR THIS COUNTRY’S TOURISM INDUSTRY THAN ANY _MOUNTAIN_ COULD HAVE. AND ALL THOSE VISITORS DESERVE ONLY THE BEST FROM YOURS TRULY, DON’T YOU THINK?”

“I… I suppose so,” Alphys agreed awkwardly. She still couldn’t get over just how successful he’d become. She was happy to see him accomplish his dreams, of course, but it was all a little… overwhelming.

“ANYWAY, WE’RE HERE,” he said. He’d stopped at the end of the hallway, in front of a smaller, but still golden and sparkling, set of doors. Written on the front of the doors in huge black block letters were the words “NO ENTRY.” Written in much smaller letters under those words, on a sheet of paper, were the words “(Except Papyrus.)”

The doors opened, revealing a room that was very… pink. It reminded Alphys more than a little bit of Mettaton’s house from back when she’d been helping him figure out designs for his robot body, only this room was much bigger. And covered in… were those roses?

In the center of a room was a double bed, covered in lacey pink sheets. Mettaton rolled over to it, and with a “HUP,” bounced onto it.

“Do I… um, d-do I _want_ to k-know?” said Alphys, staring at the bed.

“SWEETIE,” Mettaton replied. “YOU BUILT ME.”

“Yes, but I didn’t…” She pinched the bridge of her snout, then firmly lowered both hands, palm-down, in a ‘nevermind’ motion. “Forget it.”

“DON’T ASK QUESTIONS YOU DON’T WANT ANSWERED,” said Mettaton, giving his closest approximation to a shrug for someone who didn’t have shoulders. “NOW GET OVER HERE.”

Alphys walked over to the bed, feeling distinctly like she didn’t belong in this room. She took her backpack off her back and slung it onto the bed before climbing up onto it. Or trying to - it was a huge bed, and it took her a little effort with her short arms and shorter height to pull herself up.

Once she was up on the bed, she looked over at Mettaton, who had turned around for her and exposed his switch. He was filing non-existent nails - she wasn’t sure where he’d gotten the nail file.

“I DON’T HAVE ALL DAY, ALPHYS.”

“R-right,” she replied. She was sure he was a busy… robot? Android? Machine? Whatever he considered himself to be.

She reached out and flipped the switch.

Instantly, clouds of smoke emerged from Mettaton’s body, conveniently obscuring the process of his transformation and making Alphys cough. Weird, warbly music began to play as an outline of Mettaton, now in his humanoid form, emerged from out of the smoke cloud, until the smoke dissipated and there was only Mettaton, sitting on the edge of the bed and still filing his nails.

“Y-y-you know,” said Alphys, “you co-could have done that at any t-time.”

“Yes,” said Mettaton, “but why when I could make _you_ do it?”

She narrowed her eyes at Mettaton’s back, but Mettaton didn’t seem to notice or care. Sighing, she zipped open the backpack she had brought with her and took out a welding torch, a screwdriver, a face mask, and a piece of headgear with a complex series of various scopes.

“T-turn around,” she said firmly. “I… I ne-need to look at your c-core.”

“Oh my,” said Mettaton, looking over his shoulder and smiling - rather smugly, even for him. “Taking a peek at my heart already? You know it only belongs to _one._ ”

“So does mine,” Alphys replied dryly. She wasn’t really bothered by Mettaton’s flirting, if you could even call it that. It just seemed to be an automatic thing for him, regardless of who he was talking to. She was used to it.

“Very well,” Mettaton sighed melodramatically. Lifting one leg up unnecessarily far, he spun around and faced her. She crawled over to him, headgear over her eyes and screwdriver in hand, and adjusted the scopes to look closely at the capsule containing Mettaton’s purple SOUL.

“Y-your S-SOUL looks good,” she said, the scopes whirring as they zoomed closer. Mettaton began to look vaguely uncomfortable, but he quickly brushed it off with a roll of his eyes. “Y-you’re not… over… overexerting yourself, r-right?”

“Darling,” he replied, raising a hand to his chest. “I don’t know the _meaning_ of the word.”

“I’m g-going to take that as a yes,” said Alphys, without looking up at him. “You n-need to be more c-careful. I… I’ve told you, y-your SOUL will only p-p-power your body for so long.”

“And whose fault is that, hmm?”

Alphys blinked. “H-huh?”

Mettaton huffed. “You weren’t concerned about me ‘overexerting myself’ when you had me pretend to be a ‘malfunctioning killer robot’! And all so _you_ could play the heroine for a human child you’d _barely met_.”

Alphys winced. He was right - Mettaton had nearly destroyed himself beyond repair because of _her._ He was right... and it stung even more to hear it from him.

She leaned away from him, sitting back down on the bedsheets, and lifted the headgear off her forehead. Frowning, she looked up at him, trying to meet his eyes. In response, he looked away from her, crossing his arms over his chest.

“That’s…” she said slowly, “a-actually what I came here t-to talk to y-you about.”

Mettaton’s eyes glanced back down towards her. “Hmm?”

“I… I… I…” she stammered. She shut her eyes. “I c-c-came here to a-apologize.”

Mettaton didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what response she expected - maybe for him to say “well, I don’t accept” or to twist the knife by asking her “for what?” - but she wasn’t expecting silence.

So she just continued talking.

“R-remember back… back before I f-finished your b-body?”

“I remember,” Mettaton replied. She dared herself to open her eyes and look up at him, and he was… smiling. He threw his head back, dramatically placing the back of his gloved hand against his forehead. “Ah, those days when having a corporeal form seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream!”

Alphys let herself smile back, her tail wagging unconsciously against the bedsheets. “I… I really e-enjoyed the time w-we spent together back then. S-sneaking into your h-house in secret... f-figuring out the d-designs for your body… d-drawing them together… and a-actually getting to build it! I r-remember the day I first put you in a p-p-prototype… you were… you were so happy!”

Even Mettaton began to look a little nostalgic. “Darling, keep that up and you’re going to actually make me miss those days.”

“I never wanted them to end!” Alphys blurted out before she realized what she was saying. Immediately, she looked away from him, unable to meet his eyes. “I… I mean… we were f-friends, weren’t… weren’t we? That’s… that’s what I thought, a-anyway. Y-you were the o-only friend I had back then. I didn’t… I didn’t want to lose that.”

She looked up again and Mettaton’s smile had faded. She wondered if she’d said the wrong thing, but she continued on, almost in spite of herself.

“I was… I was a-a-afraid that,” she said, waving her hands around absently, “w-when your b-body was f-f-finished, you w-wouldn’t… you wouldn’t need me a-anymore. T-that we’d s-stop being f-friends.”

Mettaton looked taken aback, a hand raised to his chest.

“But… but, Alphys, I would never have… didn’t you see the poster?”

“‘Thank you for making my dreams come true,’” she recited. She reached up and rubbed at one of her eyes, knocking her glasses askew - she could feel the tears starting to come, but she’d promised herself a long time ago that she wouldn’t cry. Not ever. “I never… I never k-knew how to feel about that p-poster. I was p-proud, I was h-happy for you, but… it just r-reminded me of what I’d… what I’d l-lost.”

Mettaton frowned. It was a strange expression to see on his usually smiling face.

“And I had… I had l-lost you. You were s-successful, a s-star, and I was… I was n-n-nobody again.”

She saw Mettaton reach out towards her, then pull his hands away with a _whirr._ “I… I’m sorry, Alphys. I hadn’t realized…”

“And then… and then Frisk came,” Alphys said. She was starting to wonder if she was still speaking to Mettaton, or if she was speaking to herself. “I was… s-so lonely. I thought I’d lost… e-everything I ever cared about. I j-just… I just wanted to feel like _somebody_ again. That I was… that I was w-w-worth something to s-somebody again.”

Mettaton raised a gloved hand to his mouth and absently chewed on a non-existent fingernail. Alphys merely continued to stare at the bright pink bedsheets.

"So I used you,” she spat bitterly. “To… to make a new f-friend. And, because of that, I h-hurt you. I hurt you and I’m… I’m really, really sorry.”

She rubbed at her eyes again. She was crying now, no matter how hard she had tried not to - she could feel the wetness against her hand. It was miserable and embarrassing and she wanted nothing more than to leave. To run away, like a coward, like always.

“You’re right.”

Alphys looked back up at Mettaton through bleary eyes.

“You _did_ hurt me,” he said, sounding just as bitter as she did. “Did you have any idea how that felt, Alphys? To be used like that, and… and discarded like that? Like I was just a toy to you, a toy you could play with and throw away, and all because you wanted a _new friend?”_

Alphys nodded rapidly, trying to stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. She _did_ know what that felt like… it was what she’d always feared would happen to herself, and she’d done it to someone else. But she didn’t know how to say what she was feeling to him, so all she could do was nod.

“But…” Mettaton said quietly. “You were hurting too. And I’d been so busy thinking about myself that I hadn’t realized it.”

Alphys heard a _whirrrrrrr,_ and she looked up to find Mettaton’s two robotic arms were surrounding her, even though he hadn’t actually moved at all. Suddenly, the arms wrapped around her, and she found herself being pulled in. For one irrational moment, she was half-afraid he was going to crush her.

“Come here,” he said, and instead, he pulled her up against his chest, letting her rest against the warmth of his mechanical body.

And she started to cry in earnest, unable to stop the tears from flowing anymore. She let out a loud, undignified wail, sobbing into his chest.

“Sweetie, if you keep doing that, I’m going to short-circuit,” Mettaton said, eventually, and she laughed and rubbed at her eyes.

He actually wouldn’t short-circuit - he was waterproof - but she hardly thought it was the time to correct him. “S-sorry.”

Taking one arm off her back, he stretched his arm across the room. When it returned, it came back with a box of tissues.

“And use these before you get your snot all over my fabulous chassis,” he added.

Gratefully, she broke away from the hug and took the tissues. Unable to see very well with her glasses still half-off her face, she blew her nose into several of them at once, feeling more undignified than ever. Mettaton made a face.

“At any rate…” he said, looking warily at the snot-covered tissues. “As much as it pains me to admit it, I do miss those days too. Stardom is grand and all - it really is everything I’ve ever dreamed of - but… the truth is, it’s just not the same.”

“So…” she said, fixing her glasses as she tried to process what he was saying. “You… you a-actually want to… to be f-friends again?”

“Darling, what I’m saying is: _nothing_ would make me happier.”

And, this time, it was Alphys’ turn to hug Mettaton. Before she could even consciously think of what she was doing, she had already thrown her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against the capsule containing his SOUL. Mettaton blinked in surprise, but smiled and wrapped his arms around her again.

The smile on Alphys’ face was as bright as any she’d ever had. 

* * *

“H-how’s your arm feel?” Alphys said as the two of them walked back out of Mettaton’s bedroom and down the hallway.

In response, Mettaton put one hand on one of his huge shoulder pauldrons and stretched his arm out. _Literally_ stretched - it left a trail on the floor behind him before shooting back into his torso with another loud _whirr_.

“Better than ever, dear,” he said.

“A-and your l-legs?”

Mettaton stopped in place and did a split, winking. Roses fell from the ceiling around him - there was even one already in his mouth. Like with the nail file, she wasn’t entirely sure where he’d gotten it from.

“ _Delicious_ , darling,” he said, before standing up and continuing to power walk down the hall.

When they arrived at the central room of the mansion, Mettaton said, “Now, don’t move.”

“W-wha...?” she started to respond, but then it became clear why he’d said that. He had come up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, bending down to her height. In his other hand was a smartphone, the selfie camera pointing towards her.

She grinned a horrible, strained grin at the screen - she felt completely un-selfie-worthy, especially in her stained scientist lab coat and wearing a backpack full of engineering tools. Mettaton, though, always ready for an impromptu selfie, stuck his tongue out and made a V-sign over his eye.

He snapped the picture. Alphys winced as the screen displayed the finished photo.

...But, it actually, in Alphys’ opinion, turned out pretty good. Sure, her smile was awkward and she looked a little frumpy next to Mettaton’s posing, but all in all, it wasn’t _that_ bad.

“You look _gorgeous,”_ he said, before immediately opening his MTT-brand image-sharing app and making a post captioned “With a fan! - MTT”. For once, unlike all the other times he’d taken selfies with her, she allowed him to post the selfie without protesting.

“I knew one day I’d take one you liked,” Mettaton said smugly.

She walked through the room and stepped carefully over the rivers of water. This time, she didn’t even need to be careful - the platforms rose up under her feet as she approached them, just like they had for Mettaton.

“D-don’t get any i-ideas,” she said as she crossed. “I’m… I’m just feeling ch-charitable.”

“I’m a _fountain_ of ideas, sweetheart,” Mettaton shrugged.

“That’s what w-worries me.”

At last, they arrived at the front doors, the huge wooden ones emblazoned with an image of Mettaton. Alphys pushed them open to a twilit sky, painting all the statues of Mettaton pink, and Mettaton proudly sauntered out like a king admiring his kingdom.

“Absolutely beautiful! Don’t you think, Alphys?”

“N-narcissistic, more like,” Alphys replied, but she was smiling anyway. It felt good to be able to be her usual dry, sarcastic self with him again.

Sure enough, Mettaton didn’t seem bothered by the comment. He only continued to stare at his front yard, at all the objects shaped like himself. “I don’t even know the _meaning_ of that word.”

Alphys looked out past Mettaton’s front yard. She’d already called her taxi and it was waiting for her in the far distance, on the other side of the golden gates at the end of Mettaton’s driveway.

“I… I s-suppose this is g-goodbye, then,” she said. She extended a hand, and Mettaton turned around and looked back towards her.

“What a shame!” he said, getting down on one knee to her height and taking her hand in both of his. “It was so good to see you again, Alphys. Promise you’ll visit?”

She nodded. “I… I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Mettaton said, winking. She laughed and he released her hand, standing up back to his full height.

As she begrudgingly stepped down the stairs and walked past Mettaton’s pool, she heard him suddenly shout from the mansion’s steps.

“And you and your wife are invited to _all_ my fabulous parties! Don’t be a stranger!”

“That’s _n-not_ happening!” she shouted back. She liked Mettaton and all, but she wouldn’t attend one of Mettaton’s shin-digs if he literally paid her for it.

“We’ll see!” he said, waving at her. She gave him a wave back. “Auf wiedersehen!”

When she finally arrived at the taxi, she asked to be taken straight to Undyne’s apartment. While the taxi drove off, she fished her smartphone out of her coat and started to write some status messages for her social media pages.

Alphys: OMFG i just got back from seeing a friend i hadn’t seen in soooo long

Alphys: i was freaking out!!!

Alphys: i thought they hated me ;.;

Alphys: but they were actually really cool!!! ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

Alphys: i even got a selfie w/ them!!!

Alphys posted a link: hotsexymewmew.bmp

Alphys: OMG

Alphys: NO WAIT

Alphys: FRISK DON’T CLICK THAT

Alphys posted a link: mettatonselfie.jpg

Alphys: there we go v.v

Alphys: anyway i’m really happy!!!

friskybusiness: 

Alphys: that better be to the second picture!!!

strongfish91: OMFG ALPHYS????

strongfish91: i didn’t kno u were frends with THAT GUY

Alphys: yeah!!!

Alphys: well it’s kind of complicated (⌒_⌒;)

Alphys: but we’re friends again now!!! isn’t that great???

strongfish91: NO

strongfish91: I KIND OF HATE HIM???

strongfish91: BUT I’M SO HAPY FOR U BABE :-)

Alphys: awwww

Alphys: thanks undyne ^.^

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my friend Ivy for helping me so much with writing this fic!


End file.
